This time last year I found out I was moving from teaching third and fourth class to teaching in our junior ASD class. I was excited, trepidatious, and most of all unsure of myself. I had always taught children with autism in a mainstream setting so I had a little bit of knowledge, but not a huge amount. I prepared a lot over the summer, as best I could but there is no handbook telling you exactly what you need to do! So I am going to share over a few blog posts, things which worked for me in my class, and things I wish I had known
In October of last year I went to an NCSE Introduction to Autism two day course. It was brilliant, so informative and inspiring. However, these NCSE courses are almost impossible to get a place on, and I am guessing they won’t be going ahead this year, as hundreds of teachers in one room would make social distancing impossible.
In this first blog post, I am going to share some online CPD suggestions, which will make a huge difference to you if you don’t have a huge amount of experience in this area.
Understanding Autism by https://www.icepe.eu/home . I did this course this year and it is one of the best I have done. I have a review here: http://www.muinteoirvalerie.com/understanding-autism-cpd-course-with-icep/
Fluirse offer this one which sounds very practical. I haven’t done it myself yet so I can’t speak for the quality of it but it is an option.
https://www.middletownautism.com/
Middletown Centre for Autism is probably the site I visit the most. It is just full of useful information. They are running seminars at the moment on a range of topics so definitely worth a look.
ASD Creation Station is a website run by a highly experienced teacher, and she had released new courses which are aimed at teachers in ASD class settings. The first one is about creating timetables in an ASD class. https://asdcreationstation.com/downloads/
The National Autistic Socitety has a number of courses available for around thirty pounds each. Again, I haven’t done one but I might sign up to one, they sounds quite interesting.
htts://www.autism.org.uk/professionals/training-consultancy/online.aspx
If you have completed a CPD course which isn’t on this list please let me know and I will add it to share with others!